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Science

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Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
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  1. AUGIER DU FOT, Anne Amable.

    Catechismo d’ostetricia per istruzione delle mammane di campagna composto per odine e a spese del...

    Venice, Stamperia Graziosi, 1787.

    Uncommon first Italian edition of this handbook of obstetrics, initially published in France at the behest of Turgot in 1775 and distributed gratis to French midwives.

    £550

  2. BACON, Francis. 

    Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...

    London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638. 

    First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy. 

    £3500

  3. [BALLANTINE, E.]

    Natural History of Quadrupeds, for Children, combined with an Attempt to engraft on the youthful Mind the Principles...

    London, Harvey & Darton, 1824.

    A scarce work, second edition, the first edition to be attributed to ‘a lady’. An attractive natural history for children, the work was first published in 1813 ‘by the Author of The Decoy’, an educational work on English grammar; this second edition is the first to credit ‘a lady’...

    £400

  4. BALLARIN, Vincenzo. 

    Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...

    Venice, Fracasso, 1828. 

    First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible. 

    £900

  5. BARBIERI, Lodovico.

    Trattato di psicologia nel quale si ragiona della natura dell’anime umane, e degli altri spiriti, della loro...

    Venice, Pietro Valvasense, 1756.

    First edition of the polymath Barbieri’s treatise in which he argues that the soul is an ‘active power’. Barbieri’s text tackles the interrelation of the body and soul, the nature of space, will and freedom, argues for the superiority of the spiritual over the corporeal and against the...

    £350

  6. BELL, Charles, Sir.

    Letter signed to ‘the Treasurer of the Committee for Mr Macleay’s Portrait’.

    Soho Square, London, 18 March [probably 1824 or 1825].

    The neurophysiologist Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842) ‘begs the Committee will put his name down as a subscriber for the Portrait of Alexander Macleay Esq.’. The portrait in question is doubtless the one painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1825 and now in the Linnean Society.

    £375

  7. BENZI, Ugo.

    Regole della sanità et della natura de cibi … arricchita d’un trattato nuovo della ebbrietà et dell’ abuso...

    Turin, heirs of Giovanni Domenico Tarino, 1618.


    Scarce first edition of the vernacular works of the medieval Spanish physician Ugo Benzi (1376-1439) with commentary by the Turinese doctor Giovanni Lodovico Bertaldi (d. 1625), an extraordinary witness to their enduring popularity into the seventeenth century. Benzi’s Italian writings were first...

    £2500

  8. BERENGER, Charles Random de.

    Helps and Hints how to protect Life and Property, with Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c.

    London, J. & C. Adlard for T. Hurst ‘for the Proprietor … at the Stadium, Chelsea’, 1835.

    First edition, with advice on riding and driving, illustrated by George and Robert Cruikshank. A marksman and inventor with an ‘inclination to self-publicity and aggrandisement’ (Credland), Charles Random de Berenger (1772–1845) in 1830 established ‘the Stadium’ or ‘British National...

    £180

  9. [BERKENHOUT, John].

    Clavis anglica Linguæ botanicæ; or, a botanical Lexicon; in which the Terms of Botany, particularly those...

    London: Printed for the Author. Sold by T. Becket, and A. de Hondt … and Mess. Hawes, Clarke, and Collins … 1764.

    First edition, dedicated to John Hope of the University of Edinburgh, and written with the assistance of Arthur Lee of Virginia, winner of the Hope Medal in 1763.

    £325

  10. BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

    Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

    Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

    The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

    £6000

  11. BIGLAND, John.

    Letters on natural History, exhibiting a View of the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Deity, so eminently displayed...

    London, James Cundee for Longman, Hurst Rees, & Orme, and James Cundee, 1806.

    Scarce first edition of Bigland’s Letters on natural History. Published ‘for the use of schools and young persons in general’, Bigland’s natural history intended to show ‘the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Deity’. Its attempts at taxonomy, however, are rudimentary, as Bigland...

    £200

  12. BINGLEY, William.

    Animal Biography, or authentic Anecdotes of the Lives, Manners, and Economy of the animal Creation, arranged...

    London, R. Taylor & Co. for Richard Phillips, 1805.

    Third edition of Bingley’s most popular zoological work. First published in 1802, the Animal Biography provides accounts of the form and behaviour of a wide variety of mammals, birds, fish, and insects.

    £175

  13. BISSON, Louis-Auguste. 

    ‘Wildfire’. 

    Paris, c. 1844. 

    An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times. 

    £14500

  14. BLAINE, Delabere Pritchett.

    The Outlines of the veterinary Art, or the Principles of Medicine as applied to a Knowledge of the...

    London, A. Strahan for T.N. Longman & O. Rees and T. Boosey, 1802.

    Very rare first edition, with contemporary manuscript notes. Blaine’s most comprehensive work, The Outlines of the veterinary Art is written in three parts, discussing the history of veterinary science, anatomy, and the practice of veterinary medicine. ‘The earliest record in the English...

    £1400

  15. BLAINE, Delabere Pritchett.

    An Encyclopaedia of rural Sports, or, complete Account, historical, practical, and descriptive, of...

    London, Spottiswoodes and Shaw for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1852.

    Second edition of Blaine’s comprehensive work on rural sports. First published in 1840, the Encyclopædia of rural Sports marks a considerable departure from Blaine’s earlier scientific texts on veterinary medicine, with sections on the history and philosophy of field sports, and on...

    £275

  16. BLANCHON, Jacques.

    Iacobi Blanchoni Ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum Beneventanum abbatem Selestensem defensionum liber.

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1550.

    First edition of a very rare work of sixteenth-century Lyonnese Neoplatonism, an elegantly printed de Tournes edition.

    £950

  17. BONET, Nicolas.

    Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri p[er]spicacissimi quattuor volumina: Metaphysicam videl[icet] naturale[m] phylosophia[m]...

    Venice, Boneto Locatello for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 1505.

    First collected edition of the works of the French Franciscan Friar Nicolas Bonet (c. 1280–1343), owned and annotated by the Italian historian, biographer, and physician Paolo Giovio (1486–1552).

    £4000

  18. BOSE, Johann Andreas.

    Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...

    Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.

    First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshalls...

    £1500

  19. BOUTROLLE, J.G.

    Le parfait bouvier, ou instruction concernant la connoissance des boeufs & vaches, leur âge, maladies & symptômes,...

    Rouen, the widow Besongne and J.J. Besongne the younger, [1766?].

    Early (first?) edition of one of the most successful French veterinary guides. With the majority of early veterinary literature focused on the most highly prized animal, the horse, the present text is one of the few to address primarily the care of bovines, with sections also on pigs, sheep, and...

    £225

  20. BOYLE, Robert.

    Tractatus … Ubi 1. Mira aëris … rarefactio detecta. 2. Observata nova circa durationem virtutis elasticae...

    London, Henry Herringman, 1671 [but printed abroad?].

    I. Second edition, very scarce. The first edition, published the year before, is known in less than half a dozen copies. An English translation also appeared in 1671.

    £1750